December 29

Star Station meets Bella

Props to Nana for sending awesome Christmas presents! If only, in addition to thoughtfully including all necessary batteries, she had also thoughtfully included the necessary bottle of Excedrin. Although, now that I think about it, maybe that's what the Target gift card is for...

Anyway, Kaely got the Bella Dancerella PopStar thingie that comes with working headset microphone and Elise got the Star Station that also comes with working microphone. I'm sure you are wondering why I haven't taken video of this yet, but I have! I just haven't figured out how to get it on here yet. The Google Video is looking pretty good... My conversion project from yesterday was rudely interrupted by a nasty migraine. Incidentally, I discovered that Advil Migraine works just as good, if not better, than the prescription stuff.

December 28

Dance, Dance, Revolution!

There is an arcade at the movie theatre.

After seeing Chicken Little (in 3D), we had time to kill before the other movie got out. We wandered into the arcade and the girls started "playing" the games. Until they got to the DDR. Their eyes lit up and they clapped their hands. I broke down and bought some tokens. By the time their turn was up, they had quite an audience.

My project for the day is to figure out how to convert the digital video I took into an acceptable format for MSN.

December 18

Tropical Blossom

The other day Mom called to see how we fared during the last storm. She asked me how her "tropical blossom" was doing and, at first, I was confused because I thought she knew that I had put the orchid in the bathroom. Then I realized that she meant me! I am such a nerd

We did fine...never lost power, although people around us did. The only thing that bothers me is when the van doors freeze shut.

December 10

Nocturnal Admissions

So you know how when you are sleeping and you here a noise it sometimes takes you a bit to figure out what's going on? The other night that happened...Elise was crying and my sleepy brain couldn't even decide what type of noise it was, much less what exactly to do about. Don was quicker to react (never a good sign...waking him is like waking a hibernating bear) and he stomped off to see what was up. Still asleep, I could hear him talking/yelling and Elise still crying. Just as I am making up my mind to go see if I can help, he comes back and yells about non-sleeping children blah blah blah. You can be sure that when Lillian woke up a few minutes later (from all the noise) I was up like a shot! Anyway, the next day he tells me that when he went to go check on Elise, he found her standing in the bathroom, holding her panties (she had just gone potty), and crying "I want to be a princess!" Every time he tried to talk to her, he said, all she did was cry "I want to be a princess!" Poor kid...I wonder what she had been dreaming about!

On a totally different topic, Lillian has become quite the fashionista (or fashionist, as Kaely calls it). The pictures hardly do her justice, but I am seeing her on Project Runway or possibly What Not to Wear.

December 07

Arts and Craps

(thank you Julia)

I made a wreath from the bottom branches of our tree. The girls were so excited...oooh-ing and ahhh-ing, until I hung it on the door. Then Kaely said "It's supposed to be round, Mom." Sigh...

December 06

Van-sicle

So this morning when I went out to the van to get the heater going I discovered that I couldn't open the slidey doors because they were frozen shut. I'm going to have to think about this...

December 05

Picture It...

Charlotte, 2005. Don needed a haircut and was going to take all the girls with him. To me, that spelled certain disaster, so I opted to tag along. We pass about 100 different places to get a haircut...headed to the "perfect" spot and Dave's skilled scissors. Unfortunately, Dave had the day off As a swell consolation prize, Radio Disney was there in all it's glory. They were having a karaoke contest. Little girls picked their favorite song, lined up, and let it rip. I don't think there is anything more ear bleeding than little girls yelling the lyrics to "I Will Survive", except maybe...no, I'm at a loss here. All the grown-ups clapped and cheered equally for each participant and inwardly cringed. I particularly enjoyed the one singer who repeated the chorus (Shake your tail feathers) throughout the entire song. Read the lyrics (Shake your tail feathers)? What for (Shake your tail feather)? She was cute, though (Shake your tail feathers). Kaely and Elise seriously considered singing too, but chickened out at the last. They made up for that by dancing...in the mud. Good times were had by all.

But for all that...Don still needs a haircut (he's starting to look like Jimmy Neutron).

December 03

We got our Christmas tree!

It was great fun! And very cold! The lot we went to (Baird's or something) had such a great selection...every tree was a great choice. I saved the bottom branches to make a wreath or something equally Martha...maybe.

December 01

Are you a nerd, geek, or dork?

Pure Nerd 65 % Nerd, 26% Geek, 30% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful. Congratulations! Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Professional Wrestling Love & Sexuality America/Politics Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 67% on nerdiness You scored higher than 25% on geekosity You scored higher than 48% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

November 25

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was a great day! It was Don's first day off in ages and the girls had fun playing with him. I cooked...a lot. The pictures don't really do the table justice. And then I sat against the heating pad. That's about it...

November 21

Blah

What a rainy, gray day

Luckily, I had sparkling conversation in the van to keep things light. Conversation such as:

After sitting quietly for about 5 minutes, Elise blurted out "I am thankfuk for chicken!" and then she put her hat on her head and waved her "glubs" at me.

We're driving merrily along and she asks me what happens when a dinosaur dies and I start telling her about the ways dinosaurs died (old age, they were eaten...). She appears to be listening and I think "yay" until she hollers out "Look! A boat!" And that was the end of that conversation.

My favorite part of the day was when I discovered that I was rockin' out to the Wiggles (Hot Potato) at a red light...by myself...because both Elise and Lillian were asleep.

Yeah...good times...

Old pictures rock!

The other afternoon I had some quiet time to myself and decided to look through an old box of pictures I found while packing. Yowza! There I sat alone in my living room, laughing aloud at old pictures. All I needed was about 50 cats and I could have been every neighborhoods crazy lady. It was great fun!

I enjoy a good online quiz...

and this one amused me...

http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_190/Fictionary_Quiz.html

My score:

Fictionary 1: A Vocabulary Quiz

Congratulations, smarty pants!

You're smarter than a smart thing from Smartland--take the rest of the day off and buy yourself something nice. You got 9/10 correct.

It's a rainy day today, so I think I may be looking for more fun!

November 18

Yikes!

So I discovered today that the thin little gloves that were great for Florida "winters" are not so great here. 28 degrees and I am hauling trash to the curb and those gloves, cute as they may be, failed me. I don't necessarily need an excuse to go shopping, but having one is always nice...

The girls had so much fun putting on their hats and "glubs" this morning. They keep asking me for snow...ice apparently isn't as much fun.

November 17

Who thought I would ever be too busy to blog?

Hmmm, so moving has seriously interfered with my puter time , but thankfully we are all moved and back online! I should put a smiley here, but I am still feeling like this ...a bit.

For those of you wanting the Cliff's Notes version:

• Don transferred to Charlotte, NC (and I am still trying to figure out what the crown is for) at the beginning of September.
• House hunting nonsense...but it gets better because the house we were renting in Tally was put on the market, so we had to get out asap. But the good news was that we found the cutest house...evar...towards the end of October (nothing like last minute...we had to be out of the Tally house by the first week of November).
• ABF U-Pack = moving bliss and U-Haul still sucks.
• Moved November 5th, spent some time at Nana and Grandad's (which the girls loved to bits) and then landed in Charlotte on the 8th.
• So you know how every move has some sort of glitch? The day we get into town we are told that there is no water at the house because there is a leak in the main water line into the house...yay. They fixed it, but it involved no water for 2 days (= no fun with young children), a full day of repairs, and said repairs involved digging a Grand Canyon sized trench in my front yard.
• Kaely's new school requires uniforms, except that it is not uniform hunting season and thus they are impossible to find. Shhhhhh! Be vewy vewy qwiet...I'm hunting khaki's.

So, here we are, November17, unpacked, online, and freaking out about Thanksgiving. Huzzah! But it's nice to see that moving didn't stress out at least one member of the family...